We are home from a wonderful Christmas with Tom’s family. We drove 10 1/2 hours today through pouring rain, wind and then snow so we are very happy to be safely at home. We ordered pizza and opened this special bottle of Napa Valley Cabernet. Earlier this month, during a weak moment, I said “okay” to a sales pitch to upgrade our wine club membership to a reserve level and this is our first bottle from that selection. Although I was kicking myself for saying yes, I now see it was a good decision. This is a fine wine. Structured tannins and rich flavor. Very smooth and rich.

It is Sunday night and we have had a good weekend with nothing special but with lots of special nothings! We did our normal things like grocery shopping and laundry and I was able to spend a few hours Christmas shopping for my wonderful sisters- and brothers-in-laws. We also shopped for a snowsuit for a baby boy, whose tag we picked from the list of needs at our church. For this baby boy we bought a very warm snowsuit.

I spent most of the afternoon working on making turkey pot pies in order to use up our leftover turkey. That is a very labor intensive meal starting with making the pie crusts and then the filling. I finally got everything assembled and have been put the two pot pies away for later in the week along with a brown rice pudding that needs to bake for three hours at a low temperature. But for tonight, we had pork loin with potatoes and carrots, asparagus and a fresh salad with homemade bleu cheese salad dressing’ that I made on a whim today.

I chose this Chilean wine for our dinner tonight and it is good. This is different and not our usual. . .this is heavy on tobacco aroma and taste with a vanilla finish. This is a wine that gets better after airing. At first, it is overpowering but after breathing it is tasty and rich but not overpowering.

Looking forward to my last business trip of the year tomorrow. Just a one-nighter. It will be great to be home for an extended time. Cheers!

We had a busy Saturday but are now relaxing and enjoying a very lovely happiness hour (or two). We usually have cocktails in our front room but today we are sitting in our living room because Tom is watching football. But he was patient enough to also help me with this week’s Wall Street Journal crossword puzzle. This week is pretty difficult and we have aways to go! What is a six letter word for “stick on the field”?

For dinner my trusty cast iron skillet is on the stove with some homemade spaghetti sauce simmering. I am going to stir fry some fresh spinach.

This is is a solid, rustic wine with a soft texture and thick fruit flavors. This is going to go well with out spaghetti and spinach dinner.